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Almost half a million people tuned into TSN’s coverage of last Friday’s exhibition match between Canada and Russia in Toronto. (THE CANADIAN PRESS/Nathan Denette)

Scott Stinson

Published: December 26, 2014 - 12:11 PM

Updated: December 26, 2014 - 12:40 PM

MONTREAL — It is hard to quantify how much Canada cares about the IIHF World Junior Championship relative to the rest of the world. But there are some known facts. When played outside of Canada, the world juniors are contested in moderate markets like Ufa, Russia, and Malmo, Sweden. The rinks are relatively small, the crowds are often sparse, and even when the arenas fill up, they tend to fill up with Canadians.

Canada, meanwhile, has moved up the ladder of cities, in recent years from the biggest towns in Saskatchewan to those in Alberta and now, this year, to the nation’s largest and most devoted hockey markets: Montreal and Toronto.

Meanwhile, the television ratings in this country, for a junior hockey tournament, border on absurd. Almost half a million people tuned into TSN’s coverage of last Friday’s exhibition match between Canada and Russia. More than one million watched last year’s gold-medal game between Sweden and Finland, despite the fact that Canada is not known for a high concentration of ex-pat Scandinavians. The highest-rated non-cable broadcast ever in Canada was a WJC game: the final between Canada and Russia in 2011. And fully nine of the top 15 specialty TV programs in this country’s history are world junior events — only half a dozen Grey Cup broadcasts on TSN keep the WJC from delivering a clean ratings sweep.

Team Canada’s Nick Ritchie flips over the boards against Switzerland on Dec. 23 in Montreal. In its last two medal-round losses on home ice, Canada fell by the slimmest of margins: 6-5 to Russia and 6-5 to the United States. (THE CANADIAN PRESS/Paul Chiasson)

So, Canadians are kind of insane about this thing. The reasons for the love affair, much of them having to do with TSN, are well-documented, but as Canada opens this year’s edition on Friday night with a game in Montreal against Slovakia, trying to avoid a sixth straight year without a gold medal, the question remains: does Canada care about this event too much? More to the point: would the players find it easier if they didn’t know that a good chunk of the country was watching? And is the pressure of the tournament exacerbated on home ice?

“I don’t think it is,” says Scott Salmond, Hockey Canada’s vice-president of hockey operations, in an interview. “People always ask that, ‘Is it too much pressure for these kids?’, and I always turn it around: in the National Hockey League you play 82 games so you can get home-ice advantage. You want to have that. It’s an advantage, and not an extra pressure.”

He has a point. It’s easy to develop a narrative about the pressures of home ice, particularly since there have only been seven host-nation golds in the last 41 years of the tournament, but it’s also true that the WJC is a highly unpredictable beast. The strong countries tend to perform well in the preliminary round, but in the one-and-done medal round, upsets can and do happen. Sweden looked set to cruise to victory on home ice last year, particularly after the plucky Finns knocked off a strong Canadian team in the semifinals, but they ended up losing to their rivals in overtime. In its last two medal-round losses on home ice, Canada fell by the slimmest of margins: 6-5 to Russia and 6-5 to the United States. A deflection here or there and the home-ice-pressure-is-too-much narrative would be flipped to a boosted-by-the-home-crowd narrative.

Even players who have played in the NHL like Anthony Duclair, right, know the atmosphere for these world junior games in Canada will be a new experience. (THE CANADIAN PRESS/Paul Chiasson)

At Team Canada practised in Toronto before the tournament began, the players, not surprisingly, unanimously talked excitedly about the big crowds that were sure to watch them try to break the gold-medal drought. Even those who had played a few NHL games, like Anthony Duclair and Curtis Lazar, knew that the atmosphere for these games would be a new experience. Indeed, in that exhibition game against Russia at the Air Canada Centre last week, a sellout crowd repeatedly chanted and, regrettably, did the wave as the Canadians fired shot after shot at the Russians in what was ultimately an overtime loss. Still: a raucous crowd at the Air Canada Centre? What was this, basketball?

Salmond, for one, sees the Canadian enthusiasm only as a good thing.

“Look, if there are 18,000 fans in the stands chanting for Canada, I don’t see how that can be a negative,” he says. “I don’t really buy into that.”

“The fact is, there’s pressure every time you put on that jersey,” he says, motioning to the ice as Team Canada flew off it after a practice. “And that pressure exists, wherever you play.”

That is one of the things about this tournament. Canadians will watch even when it’s played halfway around the world. It’s just that this time, they will be a lot closer.